O'Connell To Remain Free Despite 'Despicable' Videos Found In Sexual Assault Case: Judge

PALOS HILLS, IL—A Palos Hills man will remain free despite new evidence coming to light about his criminal sexual assault case that wasn’t available at his initial pretrial detention hearing.

Timothy O’Connell, 36, is facing three felony counts of criminal sexual assault after he was accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman he met at a concert. O’Connell was granted pretrial release following an initial hearing on May 28. He is currently wearing a GPS ankle monitor and allowed two days of movement while his case is pending.

Prosecutors filed a motion Monday to detain O’Connell after new videos that he allegedly recorded of himself sexually assaulting the unconscious woman surfaced. Prosecutors said the Cook County Sheriff’s Office had not yet finished extracting the videos from O’Connell’s phone in time for his initial hearing.

“This shows a propensity of the defendant to do these types of acts,” the prosecutor told the judge. “[Electronic monitoring] doesn’t monitor a defendant’s conduct. He’s allowed two days of movement. He could be doing this to any woman in the community.

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Cook County Judge Linzie Jones wanted a night to think about it, stating that he was not prepared to decide whether to revoke his pretrial release following arguments on Monday.

On Tuesday, he rendered his decision. “It is despicable that he made these videos of his interaction,” Jones said. “I feel then as I did when I crafted these conditions to protect the victim by a GPS tracker and restricting movement. The state’s petition to detain is denied.”

The woman and her boyfriend had traveled from Michigan to Chicago on April 19 to attend the Slaughter To Prevail concert at the Aragon Ballroom on Chicago’s North Side. During the concert, the woman said she became separated from her boyfriend while crowd surfing. She said she struck up a conversation with O'Connell, who bought her a drink. After taking a few sips, prosecutors said she could not recall anything after that until she woke up in a state of undress the next morning.

Palos Hills police turned over the criminal investigation to the Cook County Sheriff’s Police due to a potential conflict of interest because O’Connell’s mother is a Palos Hills alderman.

“This shows a propensity of the defendant to do these types of acts,” the prosecutor told the judge, calling O’Connell a danger to every woman in the community. “[Electronic monitoring] doesn’t monitor a defendant’s conduct. He’s allowed two days of movement. He could be doing this to any woman in the community.”

The prosecutor also said statements from O’Connell’s estranged wife, who alleged O’Connell drugged and sexually assaulted her while unconscious along with a friend in a hotel room in 2016. She claimed that O’Connell showed her a video of the assault.

O’Connell’s attorney, Robert Olson, countered that the victim was on federal parole and had been arguing with her boyfriend before leaving with O’Connell and his friends, who then drove her 25 miles from the Aragon Ballroom back to Palos Hills. The assault is alleged to have occurred in his friend’s Palos Hills condo.

Olson said the Michigan woman tested negative for date rape drugs during a toxicology test at a Michigan hospital on April 21. He also accused O’Connell’s estranged wife of making up her story and that the couple were going through a “contentious divorce.”

The prosecutor had also brought up Monday that O’Connell’s current wife, with whom he is in the middle of an acrimonious divorce, also gave statements to police regarding a similar experience she claimed happened in 2016.

At the time of the alleged threesome, O’Connell’s attorney, Robert Olson, said his wife was his girlfriend.

“She didn’t call police to report it,” Olson said. “She did something worse. She married him.”

The prosecutor said she believed O’Connell’s wife.

Also cited was an Illinois Appellate Court case in which a man accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl in a car had his bond revoked. Except for their ages—the Michigan woman is an adult—the prosecutor said the circumstances matched the Michigan woman’s.

Judge Jones said both cases were different. He also found the statements O’Connell’s estranged wife made to investigators to be vague.

“Based on all that, the petition to detain remains denied,” the judge said. “That’s to be tried and taken beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Judge Jones set additional conditions of release that O’Connell is prohibited from publishing and disseminating any further sexually explicit videos. He is also prohibited from using drugs and alcohol and is subject to drug testing while on pre-trial release.

O’Connell is due back June 25 at the Bridgeview Courthouse for arraignment.

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~This story has been updated with new information.